Healthy Indulgence

Healthy Indulgence is first and foremost here to help guide you to live your own version of a healthy yet indulgent life. I believe this is most effectively done through clean cooking, movement, whole food supplements and attractive thoughts.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Like-Reese's Peanut Butter Bars
OOO lala, that is all I have to say. I am so faraway from home when it comes to tasting treats like these... and I do not even LIKE Reese's anymore. Justin's does much better job, but what I LOVE about making my own is that I can choose my ingredients! I am still paying with this modified recipe, so sit tight and I will update my non-butter version soon!

Watch out because a whole tray is easy to eat, but a lot for your hips! I cut half the tray in smaller squares and froze them for ... !!!

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup/125gr salted butter, softened (1 stick) (if you only have unsalted, no matter just add some salt)

1 1/2cups (250gr) creamy peanut butter (I use all natural only peanuts in it but made sure it was fresh enough it had not seperated, you can also use a more typical brand like JIF or whatever)

2 T/soupspoon coconut oil - divided

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup unrefined sugar ( I used Rapadura. You can also use powdered sugar!)

Place half of chocolate and 1T coconut oil in double boiler/bain maire. Let melt, stirring often until smooth. Spread into prepared pan, smoothly and evenly. Refridegrate until hard, about 30 minutes.

While that is hardening, add the softened butter, creamy peanut butter, vanilla extract and sugar into a mixer, Thermomix or large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy. Taste and add more sugar to taste.

When chocolate is hard, spoon peanut butter mixture over it. Spread evenly. Put back in fridge.

Mix flour and water to make a very thin batter, like a crêpe batter. Add olive oil and salt.

Let the batter rest for 1 hr. Remix it before using.

Use a 35 cm diameter pizza pan, the oven must be extremely hot 230°C/410F. Put the empty pan in the oven and when is extremely hot and put 2 tbspoon of olive oil on it. Put the pizza pan back in the oven to heat olive oil.

Add 2 ladles of the batter on the extremely hot olive oil pizza pan. Thickness of the dough, approximately 0.5mm.

Every oven is different so your first socca will guild you for the next batch. Cook for 7 min at 230°C/410F (You my need to us the grill few minutes before the end of the cooking period).

The texture of the socca must be crispy top and inside hardly soft (moelleux).

Peel onions and put them in the boiling water with salt 5 min. A process is called "blancher" or blanching. Drain them. Wash and wipe all the vegetables, eggplants, zucchinis, and potatoes.

Cut the top of each of these vegetables and reserve their tops to place it as a hat. We are going to fill them.

Using a spoon,, small melon baller or scoop, delicately scoop out the flesh of all the vegetables (leave 1 mm from the skin to the flesh), without damaging the skin and Reserve it in a bowl.

In boiling water with salt put the swiss chard 5 min same process has for the onions (blanching).

Drain them and place between two sheets of paper towels to remove the water.

Preheat the oven at 180°C/350F.

Prepare the rice

Cook your rice half the time recommended. The rice will continue to cook with the petit farcis in the oven. It will absorb the extra juice of the vegetables

Prepare the stuffing

Use the vegetables that you reserved in a bowl.

Chop 2 tablespoonful of onions and all the flesh of the other vegetables that you had saved in a bowl.

Saute the onions with olive oil until translucent brownish in a large skillet. Add the chopped vegetables. Add the sausage meat and then ground beef, when the pink of the meat is just starting to fade away remove from the fire. Add the chopped swiss chard, rice, fresh persil, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme. Mix.

Taste the stuffing before seasoning with salt & pepper

Start stuffing your vegetables. Place the saved hats on the vegetables. Put the dish in the oven for 1 hour then reduce the temperature 150 °C/300F and let it cook about 30 min more.

Clean and peel the potatoes. Cook the potatoes in a steamer preferably (or in water).

Crush them with potato masher to obtain a purée.

Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

2 egg yokes .

Add 400gr of the spelt flour to start.

Mix well.. The dough is rather sticky but that is completely normal.

The more we add of flour, the more firm the dough will be.

Flour the work top, take a quarter of the dough and coat it well with flour

(Use the remaining 100gr of the flour when the dough starts to get sticky again-the flour absorbs the water and gets sticky).

Roll the dough in form of a sausage 2 centimeters in diameter.

Chop pieces with a knife 2 centimeters.

Press the dough with the back of a fork to make an mark on the gnocchis

Put the gnoccis (20 at a time) to cook in a big pan of salty boiling water. As soon as the gnocchis come up to the surface, take them out with a skimmer and continue the same process with the remaining uncooked gnocchis.

Cooking tips : I cook my gnocchis in advance by small quantities and as soon as they surface, I put them in some cold water for 1min to stop the cooking. Take them out with a strainer type of spoon/ladle to get rid of the remaining water. Transfer in a dish put some olive oil (½ tbspoon) to prevent them to stick. Then I prepare the sauce (tomato sauce or parsley sauce). I add them at the last minute to reheat the gnoccis.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

AMAZING Pumpkin Pie with GingerSnap or Speculoos Crust

Typically, I do not like Pumpkin Pie, actually I HATE Pumpkin Pie. I make it every Thanksgiving for people I love who Love it! Today, I had a Pumpkin Pie request at my Healthy Cooking class. So, I went for it. What a surprise! It was fantastic. I had 3 French, 1 Spanish and a non-cooking American raving. I used a straight edge cake pan instead of a typical American pie pan, like a small french art pan. This made it easier to press in the crust, and held more filling. You gotta try it.

Start by preparing the pumpkin... Preparing Pumpkin
Pre heat oven to 400F/200C.
Cut pumpkin in half. Take seeds out.
Place flesh down (skin up) on a cookie sheet.
Poke a few holes in the skin.
Add a few TBLS of water to tray.
Place in oven and roast until pumpkin is soft.
Be careful when you open the oven door, the steam will shoot out in your face!

Thursday, October 4, 2012

My daughter was playing around with my cookbooks recently, and lover of mint and chocolate that she is, she discovered and successfully vegan-ized these amazing cookies from the Tassajara CookBook. Just makes it easier to eat them! Who says we need to wait for the girls in green to come by....
2+1/2cups (375gr) flour (I use spelt/epeautre)
1/2cup (125gr0 cocoa powder
1+1/2 tsp (coffee spoon) baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
1/2 tsp seasalt
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted (de-aromatized is the best)
1 cup maple syrup
1+1/2 tsp mint extract
1+1/2 cups chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350degrees F/ 175degrees C.
COmbine all dry ingredients, except chocolate chips, in a large mixing bowl.
In a large tall mixing cup, combine all wet ingredients with a stick mixer to emulsify. Or just whisk them together until smooth.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until all the flour is combined. Then gently mic in chocolate chips.
Drop by teaspoonfuls onto baking sheet covered with baking paper, and flatten with the back of the spoon. Bake 12-16 minutes- wait for the chocolate-y smell and then check them! Cool.
Since we no longer have store bought cookies, we make batter, ball it all, bake only
1-2 trays and freeze the rest of the balls for another day's instant warm cookies!

So, You Want to Bake!

Cooking & Baking Classes ... just for you. Let the babysitter take care of the kids (if you need this service!) and come cook or bake with me! Cakes-in-Shapes, vegan- or not! Mussels... all with a bit of fun and not too much precision. Groups or Private Lessons.